


Dopamine, Adrenaline, and Serotonin

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [19]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Chemistry, Did I say Light Angst I meant, Drabble, F/M, Light Angst, One-Sided Attraction, POV Third Person, SasuSaku Month 2017, not that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 03:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12246051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "What I feel isn't just a chemical reaction!"SasuSaku Month Day 3: Chemistry





	Dopamine, Adrenaline, and Serotonin

She doesn't know how exactly they got in this situation.

There are three enemy ninja surrounding them, and she stands in a defensive position in the middle of the three boys, kunai clutched in her hand even as she knows she probably won't need it. She's been growing more and more aware recently that she's the one who drags the team down, that she's the one who's lacking in skill level; it's not Naruto anymore because he's constantly improving, and while she was good enough in the beginning, in a whole year as a team she's hardly changed at all. Sasuke and Naruto have ended up miles ahead of her in progress.

Naruto and Kakashi take two of the shinobi out with very little struggle, but the third is more of a challenge, and she watches in wide-eyed horror as flames and embers crawl up the side of Sasuke's face with an angry yell. More and more, Naruto is getting ahead of him, too, and she can tell that it bothers him. On days like this, when the knucklehead does particularly well, Sasuke will break anything in his path to prove that he is good enough. It kills her a little inside every time to watch this.

She can only watch in terror as Sasuke breaks the arm of the kunoichi in front of them with a _crack_ that makes her stomach tighten, his eyes wild like the wild boars that sometimes try to come down into the village from the mountains.

The woman lets out a yell of pain before Sasuke kicks her in the mouth, and all sound feels like white noise as blood rushes from her lip and nose while Kakashi says something that sounds vaguely like "That's enough," but she can't quite make it out over the static in her head as she watches everything uselessly. Her knees tremble and give out under her when he turns and slashes at Kakashi, and a lesser ninja wouldn't have dodged that swipe, but the kunai misses their sensei's face and she wonders if Sasuke even knows what he's doing anymore. He's been losing more and more of himself recently, she's felt it, and it's killing her inside to watch this. She sits there on the ground, legs feeling like a pool underneath her as she sits uselessly and watches her two best friends in the whole world fight.

Kakashi is talking to her, she vaguely registers, and she says that she's fine without actually understanding what he said to her before shakily pushing herself to stand, taking a slow and wobbly step toward the boys. Blond and black and red and blue fill her vision as she practically drifts closer to them, her feet carrying her aimlessly and before she realizes it she's jogging, running, _sprinting_ until she's between them and her arms are thrown out to either side of her. She isn't sure who she's defending, but when she opens her eyes, filled with tears and stinging and oh so _miserable_ , she sees that it's Sasuke she's facing. She wants to talk, to ask him why, but her lips betray her, refusing to cooperate. She's completely numb and she can't properly form words and she hates how pathetic she feels right now. She's _so tired_ of feeling pathetic.

It takes her a minute, but eventually, grinding her teeth, she brings the feeling back into her lips, and she looks Sasuke right in the eyes; when the words come out though, they're not what she was expecting. She suspects they aren't what he was expecting, either, based on the way his eyes widen a bit before he glares at her, eyes narrowing and shooting daggers directly into her soul. "I love you..."

She whispers it, and based on the silence from behind her, she can only guess that Naruto didn't hear her, otherwise he would be running his big mouth. Sasuke rips his eyes from hers eventually. "Tch..." She thinks that might be all he says or does, before, "No you don't. Love is just a chemical reaction when you see something you like."

Her hands clench into fists at her sides and she angrily lifts one, shoving it into his jaw and sending him flying a foot back, though she suspects this is more due to his lack of expectancy than any real strength on her part. She's not strong. She'll never be strong.

"My feelings aren't just a chemical reaction..." She whispers it, more to herself than anything, and she thinks she hears a quiet inquiry which makes her glare at him this time. "I said," she rushes toward him, angrier than she has ever been with her teammate-- with this particular teammate, that is. "What I feel isn't just a chemical reaction!" Her fist goes flying, aiming for a connection with his cheekbone this time.

He catches her fist in his hand this time, and his glare almost matches her own in ferocity.

She almost feels desperate. "Love... love isn't just some chemical soup." He doesn't argue, but she knows that he doesn't agree with her and for once it makes her angry, really _angry._ It's the sort of white hot rage that she doesn't even feel toward Naruto or Ino, the sort of anger that she only ever feels... comprehension dawns on her and that weak feeling is back. She digs her nails into her palms and grits her teeth and forces herself to keep going. "And if it is... If love is just a hasty mix of dopamine, adrenaline, and serotonin, then hatred is just epinephrine. And that makes us both idiots..."

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to find a way to do something fluffy and shippy for this but this fic practically wrote itself.


End file.
